Thomson

It’s a heck of a way to run a pre-election campaign. On the eve of an expected election, politicians usually spend their time playing up good news, downplaying the bad, shaking hands and kissing babies.

Faulder: Remembering a girlhood idol

Journal Food writer recalls the life and death of Diana, Princess of Wales

From left, Diana, Princess of Wales and sons Prince William and Prince Harry visit Niagara Falls aboard the Maid of the Mist in the fall of 1991.

Photograph by: Postmedia News, file
, Edmonton Journal

I ran across a portrait of myself recently, taken in my mid-twenties as I graduated from university.

Like most proud grads, I am perched stiffly in a studio of some sort. Behind me in the photograph is a fake bookcase studded with leathery texts, and I am wearing the classic academic attire, a dark blue robe trimmed in red.

Oddly discordant, however, is the blouse I chose to wear for this occasion. It pops from the neck of the robe, like daisies in spring, a high, ruffle-necked affair with pearly buttons. Extending from the sober sleeves of the gown is more frippery — frilly white cuffs. I looked at the picture quizzically for a moment and pondered. What was I thinking, wearing such a getup for my graduation photo?

Then I remembered. The blouse was fashionable at the time, inspired as it was by the wardrobe of Diana, the Princess of Wales. My idol.

Generally, I keep my fondness for the monarchy to myself, in case some history buff feels he’s found a kindred spirit and tries to engage me in a conversation about the English Reformation. I have little interest in actual British history. I just liked the princess. Despite the fact that she was the daughter of a Viscount and went to finishing school in Switzerland, and I was the daughter of a salesman and went to Jasper Place high, I thought we had quite a bit in common.

We were both born in July and married young (me in 1980, she in 1981) to men that were older than our tender selves. We both had sons born 27 months apart, in the months of June and September respectively. And we both ... well, actually, that’s about it. I wouldn’t even have liked frilly blouses if not for Diana, though would happily have worn a table runner and matching napkins if she had done it first.

There was something about her kind and open nature and shy smile that let people inside. She pushed the boundaries on the traditional role of the monarchy, seemingly extending her soft heart far and wide. She shook hands with AIDS sufferers as others feared contamination, she always had a hug for a child, and her causes — such as the anti-landmine campaign — felt like a sincere reflection of her values.

I am aware that some of these were carefully staged events. But Diana was different than the other Royals. She didn’t want her children to be raised by nannies; she ran races with the other mothers at sports days at her sons’ school. These simple acts made people like me think that they knew her, and understood her triumphs, her humiliations. Diana appeared to be like us, but better, and of course, more beautiful. I remain transfixed by pictures of the princess, the blue eyes and thick dark lashes, the casually stylish mop of blond hair, the winning smile.

I know she was a silly girl in some ways, who manipulated the media to take her side when her marriage broke up, and that her children have had to endure her embarrassing disclosures, and always will. But I forgave her all that. She was human, she suffered the same disappointments that afflict lesser beings, and if she could weather a divorce and live to love again, so could we.

I remember the night I heard Diana was dead. It was about 9:30 in the evening, and I was ironing in the laundry room in the basement. My eldest son, the Prince William in my household, was 11 at the time. He was tucked into bed in the next room, listening to the radio in the dark before he went to sleep.

“Mom,” he cried out. “The Princess of Wales has been killed in a car accident.”

My heart stopped.

“Dylan,” I said. “If that’s a joke, it’s not funny.

No, he said. Come and listen.

I sat on his bed and we tuned into the news report, and then followed the sad story on television for days, that endless loop of footage of the car being towed from the tunnel in Paris. I wept watching her little boys walk behind the funeral procession, even harder when I saw the card that read “Mummy” that 12-year-old Prince Harry had placed atop her flower-laden coffin. How sad I was for them, and for her.

As the years have passed, I have thought of Diana often. Just last night, I watched a program on PBS featuring her wedding to Prince Charles more than 30 years ago, and I felt again the pangs of my girl crush. I thought of her sons and mine as I watched, and was grateful that the opportunity to enjoy life together, to experience future weddings, Christmases, babies, is still there for me and my boys. They are life’s simple riches, the things that matter whether you are a princess or a reporter. I think Diana would be happy about that, too.

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